Be careful what you wish for. Anna Meares is "really sick" of meeting her perennial rival Victoria Pendleton at the semi-final stage of major competitions and would like to meet her in the Olympic final. That would be the only fitting conclusion to their nine years of shared personal history but it can only happen if Pendleton, usually a slow qualifier, finds the early speed that will guarantee her top seeding. There were indications from the team's holding camp in Newport that "Queen Victoria" was setting personal best times, pointing to a possible repeat of the Olympic final of 2008.

The national focus in the run-up to the pair's last meeting will all be on "Our Vicky", the British heroine who can bare all for a photoshoot or bare her soul for a television documentary or interview. She has kept little hidden from us in recent years: we know all there is to know of Pendleton, and mostly the British media and fans seem to like it. But what of her great rival? You would have to be a blinkered chauvinist not to appreciate Meares's qualities as well: professionalism, an epic level of motivation, levelheadedness, and a very definite sense that there is life outside her sport. Pendleton speaks of her longing to discover a world outside cycling; Meares, you sense, has a fair idea of it already.

The pair's careers have run in parallel since 2002, when they met in the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and "it hasn't changed too much since then". Meares is 28 and took her first major title in 2004, Pendleton is 31 and made her breakthrough a year later. They could, perhaps should, have been friends: at the Stuttgart world championships in 2003, they were sharing a beer when someone spilled a drink on Meares's jacket. Meares recalls warmly how Pendleton took her downstairs to the lavatory and helped to clean her up "so I could get back up there and have a good night". Fate has decreed otherwise.

Meares's take on her relationship with Pendleton is nuanced. She feels it has been hyped up – "There's a rivalry, but not to the extent that the media want" – acknowledges it is good for the fans, and recognises that having the British woman to aim at has been key in her career. "She went down the sprint path, I went for the [500m] time trial. When that was axed she was well down the pathway and it took me time to deviate back towards that event. She's been a huge motivating factor for me in that event, she's been a huge motivator for every woman.

"To be the best you've got to beat Vicky, for me to have the belief that I could contend in London I had to beat her at her own game. It took me until last year to do it. It was so emotional for me, I'd spent so long getting beaten at that event, you get frustrated with it after a while. There are times when I've gone, 'how on earth am I going to beat her?' The British sprinters had so much speed, they didn't need to work on tactics." One route Meares chose was to work on her qualifying, aware that getting an easier run through would increase her chances. Pendleton tends to be a slower qualifier, top seven or eight rather than top three, which is why the pair so often have met in semi-finals over the years.

The pair's relationship is the more important because the personal element counts for so much in sprinting. It is about establishing psychological mastery as much as going faster than the opponent. Before Beijing Pendleton had the whip hand; since then, the momentum has swung Meares's way but the world championships in April made it unclear who is on top. That uncertainty is what makes the tournament in London seem so enticing.

"The sprint is a battle for control," says Meares. "Each rider is setting the other one up to fall into a trap, whoever can set it up and capitalise on it will be the one who wins. Speed is only one aspect, decision making another. You need to be on top of your game, understand, relax, not be too tense otherwise you start thinking. If you think it takes time to make the decision and that means opening the door for your opponent. Both parties are trying to manipulate the race to suit your strength and not that of your opponent, and with Vicky that's extra rewarding."

After losing the world title to Pendleton, Meares paid tribute to her rival: "For her to pick herself up after hitting the deck as hard as she did and come away with the win speaks volumes of the level of character she has. I know a lot has been said about her being fragile but I know she will bring her A-game to London for the home crowd. I know I need to work harder if I want to get that title off her. She goes to the Games as defending Olympic champion, world champion, and I want it."

Meares was a slow starter at bike racing, the youngest of four children, and forced to play second fiddle to her elder sister Kerry, who would snaffle the bigger bed in shared hotel rooms and grab the front seat in the car for the two hour drives to the nearest track to their Queensland home. Eventually the pair became rivals for the single sprint slot available to Australia, with the younger sister overtaking her elder sibling. It was clearly complicated.

She speaks also of the accident in Los Angeles in early 2008 that could have left her permanently disabled. It was seven months from Beijing when she clipped a wheel in a keirin, fell at 65kph and hit the banking, with the force pushing her head back and causing her to crack a vertebrae. It was 2mm away from being a clean break which would have left her at best quadriplegic. To come back, amid massive attention from the Australian media, and gain silver to Pendleton in Beijing – Australia's only cycling medal of that Games – was a victory in itself.

Where Meares is most refreshing, however, is in her sense of herself as a role model in the thorny area of female body image. She speaks passionately about an adolescence in which she was not happy with her body, and how she came to terms with it, and feels strongly that her experience can help others. "I understand the position I'm in. I've realised how much effect I can have on people, how many kids want to contact me.

"I love being involved in sport because it shows kids a different image of what it is to be a strong woman, a different stereotype. It's not always about being skinny, being under pressure in your image, it's about presentation and confidence in yourself. Being confident you are unique, that everyone brings something different to the table.

"I love the fact that the women I compete against in my sport are big, strong, powerful – they've got curves, muscles, confidence, courage. If that's something I can give to young kids out there I'd be pleased. It's difficult when you are a young girl, you see beautiful girls and women in magazines in bikinis. You don't have that confidence. I wasn't happy in the body I had, as I've grown up and matured I've realised I don't have that model body physiology." She sums up in the pithiest of terms: "I got teased a bit as a kid because I had a big butt, but I've put it to good use."

While Pendleton has told the world she is quitting after London, Meares may be on the way out too. She initially contemplated teaching or coaching as a career and has combined training with university studies, but is now moving more towards a possible career in radio journalism. She will decide after the Games, not wanting to distract herself in the run-up with thinking about what comes after. Whatever the outcome, she acknowledges that together she and Pendleton have created a story of their own, "what we have brought to the table for our sport, is something which has drawn people in." And might they have a drink after it's all over? "I'll have a rum, Vicky can have a beer."